tundra of our skin
by emilyforprez
Summary: "if love is a bridge, we've built it wrong"


There are bruises on Mickey's hips where he swears he doesn't remember Ian touching.

Ian tells him he bruises easily, and that's the funniest thing he's heard in his whole life. Dad told him he never bruised, so he hit him harder, to prove a point or something. He might've broken the skin, made it thinner and penetrable, easier for Ian to touch and imprint his fingers and nails into. There are marks beneath the skin, too, but Ian didn't make those, and neither did Dad.

Ian has half-moon imprints on his ass, and bruises in the shape of Mickey's teeth on his neck, so Mickey feels like it evens itself out. He's not the only one getting hurt. It probably doesn't mean anything, but when he's staring at Ian and Mandy at the other end of a shitty party with shitty dubstep, he can see Ian rubbing at his collar and making excuses and he feels triumphant, like he succeeded in making something his.

Ian wants him, likes him, fucks him when he asks, blows him when he doesn't. Bruises him, when he doesn't ask for it, but wants it anyway. The need to be belong to someone is there. And Mickey is everything when Ian thinks he's something.

Then he opens his mouth.

"Ow. _Mickey._"

"What?" With his teeth on Ian's shoulder he can hear every stuttered intake of breath, feel it shivering beneath his skin. He has a hand on the curve before his ass, thumbing the shallow dips in between the knobs of his spine, another on his leg and feeling the tensed sinews in his muscles. Ian's face is buried in the sheets and his knees are spread with his ass in the air like Mickey's gonna fuck him, but he can't decide yet if he wants to.

Ian breathes again and lifts Mickey's hand with its force. "Not too hard. ROTC. Sore."

Mickey never hears Ian speak in short, choppy sentences like that, but he doesn't press the issue. Ian's need for words and expressions and feelings only get put on hold for more important shit, like the tight warmth of a mouth or an ass; then he gets quiet.

From a secret crevice in Mickey's body comes a tide of spite and he bites harder just to hear Ian whimper, just to feel the muscles in his leg tense again, just to hear the tell-tale yelp of pain that he swallows in the back of his throat. ROTC gets in the way of everything, makes Ian too tired to fuck or too sore to hurt, and Mickey doesn't know how to fuck without the hurt, without the bruises on his hips.

Ian makes another noise and twists. "Mickey."

"I know," he snaps, lets Ian flip him over and straddle his hips. Ian fits his fingers into the shapes of last week's bruises. Mickey winces against the pain and knows it was intentional, doesn't ask him to stop.

Ian slides a hand beneath Mickey's waistband and Mickey makes a dumb feral sound. "Don't fuck around." There's another meaning there but Ian doesn't get it, busying himself in the feeling of Mickey's dick tightening under his fingers, his head dipped low, nosing the white spaces between the purple marks of his fingers.

Mickey stares at the ceiling fan, at the poster of a girl he pasted up there in a fit of gay panic. He used to try to jack to it, but found his eyes closing and his mind permeating images of dudes and the point became moot, unnecessary. Ian wriggles down Mickey's body and breathes hot on his thighs. He's been blown before, too many times to count on his two hands, but there's something about Ian's nails scratching a message into his skin that makes this time different, like the last time was different.

Mickey pushes his hands through Ian's hair. He misses the bangs, misses the length, misses being able to think that Ian was still too young to think about leaving. Ian left boyhood behind while Mickey was stuck in purgatory, became a man before Mickey could return, and now_ leaving _is on the horizon.

But Mickey refuses to ruin getting his dick sucked by the idea of Ian no longer being around to do it, squeezes his eyes shut and let's himself forget, for a second. And it hurts. Something about Ian's hands and his mouth and the hair that he had to crop short for ROTC makes everything hurt more. Bruises beneath the skin. Mickey had them before Ian came around, wielding his crowbar, but Ian touches them, makes them bigger, makes them real.

Mickey doesn't know how to love without the hurt.


End file.
